IIs Vécurent Heureux, or Happily Ever After
by liviamaxima
Summary: Adam's now a duke, but family doesn't approve of Belle.  Someone is sabotaging their happy ending. Somewhere in all this, the Enchantress has a few more tricks up her sleeve! Begins slow, but picks up where film left off.
1. Chapter 1: The Beast in His Den

The sun was setting at last.

The day was ending.

Sitting at his desk in his father's old study (his study?) a man with reddish blond hair groaned with relief, and rolled his head, cracking the vertebrae in his neck. He was almost finished. The mountain of paperwork was down to its last until at least next Tuesday. And his mind was ready to wander.

Three weeks ago, the guests had all gone home. The last of the champagne had been drunk, and Adam had, to the joy and neverending pride of Cogsworth, introduced himself as the new Duc de Touraine to his people. To the surprise of his guests, Monsieur le Duc revealed that he would take a bride of common blood, the grandchild of a merchant and one of their own-Belle DuPont, a beauty that every man in the village dreamed about and the one woman everyone gossiped about for years. Three weeks ago, the entire castle celebrated a victory over a curse that had consumed it and settled a cloud of misery over all who lived there; where there had been darkness and misery there was now light, and hope, and joy.

Three weeks ago, Belle and himself, Adam, invited people from far and wide to meet their new ruler and "tell them the truth" about Gaston. In the wee hours of the morning after the fireworks shot into the sky and old, foreboding statues changed back to their original, angelic selves, somebody had to go down to the ravine and collect the tavern keeper's body. All within the castle made a pact never to speak of Gaston's very real and vicious attempt to murder their master when it was clear that Mademoiselle loved another. Nobody would breathe a word-except amongst themselves-about the true nature of Belle's captivity in the castle. They owed the new couple their freedom. They at the very least owed them their loyalty.

Eight weeks ago, Maurice, likewise, promised his daughter he would never reveal what he saw that rainy night. No denizen of Molyneux deserved to hear the story his daughter told him while he was sick. Nobody deserved to know Belle's recounting her memories of this enigmatic creature, an enchanted Beast with what she surmised was the soul of a man, her friend; they didn't need to know what had happened to Belle in the six months she was gone. He would not speak of how the questions she was asking him as she sat by his bedside were no longer about some silly fable and ogres and swashbuckling pirates who stole a maid's heart, but questions he wondered once if he'd ever hear from his girl's lips, questions he dreaded ever having to hear-insights into the heart of the opposite sex. He would not bear witness to anyone over his encouragement of her riding off on Phillipe with him to rescue her onetime captor, nor of his own mad dash into the castle when he saw Gaston Robicheaux bellowing like a madman and about to commit murder. Maurice DuPont stood hidden from view in the wings of a decrepit old master bedroom that night, and arrived only to see his daughter weeping over the dying body of her lover. It would be awfully tempting to throw it back in their faces that the Beast they were so terrified of and marched on armed with torches and pitchforks was now their master. But, for the sake of his daughter and the son-in-law with whom he'd had a few long, long talks, he would remain silent.

The reddish blonde man murmured for a minute at this memory. "That is, until, they kept peppering him with questions about his daughter's sudden appearance on the arm of a powerful man long thought disappeared or dead," he mused to himself. "Maurice practically ran into this very room. He was red faced and wearing some bizarre helmet with binoculars and collapsible garden shears and there were musket ball holes in his cloak. Maurice sputtered he'd let some glue he'd invented drizzle on his head before he put it on, thought it was oil. Cogsworth and I tugged at him from both ends that day, trying to get the helmet off. Cogsworth was holding his feet and shouting he was a blithering idiot, and Maurice kept shouting, in between pulls, that he was chased out of town over Gaston. I kept tugging at those _putain _ handlebars he had on his head and trying to avoid getting cut by the scythe that kept popping out of a compartment. I was arguing with him that I wasn't going to give the pig who tried to kill me and would have probably raped my wife if I had died that night any more of a sendoff than quietly returning his body. He said his boomenator machine was running out of gunpowder and it wasn't enough to keep the neighbors away-whatever that meant-and that they demanded he appear at the funeral. When he refused to go, they tried to shoot him and he hid out in his barn, hoping he could hitch up Philippe and slip out the back first thing in the morning. I think it was at the point the damn thing finally popped off Lumiere came in and suggested Maurice unpack his wagon for good and move in- and we waited for Belle to come back so we all could hatch a plan."

He thought about the big crowd they drew at the victory ball, and sending out the invitations to Molyneux. He thought about Belle's yellow gown, and their rehearsal before descending the stairs to the ballroom. It was to be after the first dance. That was the plan. Maurice by then would have been dropping hints all week at the tavern.

Together, Belle and Adam waxed lyrical about Gaston Robicheaux, humanitarian, huntsman, and _chevalier noble _ without equal. Adam went first, and sat on his father's old throne, his back straight and his eyes boring into his subjects, cool and imperious. Inside he was hoping that he was doing a good enough impression of the way his father used to act when he had to deal with official matters and that nobody noticed his palms sweating as he gripped the arms of the chair. He cleared his throat, and described to a spellbound audience how long ago, as a youngster, he was locked away in his own dungeon by a sorcerer whose ugliness and evil was so great within it manifested itself on the outside. The monster enchanted the castle with hundreds of booby traps, including moving furniture and spirits hauting the upper floors, wraithlike guardsmen. This heinous creature even transformed him, their rightful ruler, into a legless statue to ensure he could never escape. he was alive, but no longer human. Always hungry, able to shiver from the cold, but unable to die or feel relief; able to bleed, but unable to heal. For months, as this statue, he and Belle became close, both captors of the sorceror and speaking at night through a loose brick in the wall. She became his first confidante in many years, and he was her protector; it was his duty. When the Beast would come to Belle looking to slake his lust, Adam explained, he would find a way to distract him by making false attempts to escape, and taking many a beating for her. (To gasps, he showed the teeth marks on his right arm, the scars on his backside, and the stab wound that was just starting to heal.)

Together they planned Belle's escape and Adam gave her the one thing that kept him from going mad in his prison, something he had stolen from the Beast long ago-a magic mirror. They thought that if the people of Molyneaux knew the truth about what was ahead of them at the castle, they might not try to help...so that mirror was a bit of reverse psychology. Getting to Gaston to hunt the Beast down and giving him the mirror was the real goal. The only complication was, when the time had come to put the plan in motion, the mirror showed Maurice had tried to come rescue his daughter on his own...and now needed rescuing himself.

From here it was Belle's turn. She sat in the smaller chair next to her husband-to-be and continued where Adam left off. Belle conjured up tears at how clever, sweet, dear Gaston broke the castle free from a spell by smashing an enchanted lily and kicked through the wall risking attack from thousands of imps, trying to rappell down to Adam and bring him into the light for the first time in many years. Their ruler was nearly skin and bones when he emerged, and it was all due to Gaston that he could at last feel human touch and Gaston even gave him the shirt off his back to warm him and help him to safety. There was abject silence and wonder at the climax where Gaston brawled with the Beast on the rooftop for hours and stabbed him through his black, cruel heart, only for Gaston to tragically fall to his death...and not an eye was dry when Adam spoke of his instructions beforehand, "_Mon Seigneur,_ I may go to my death in fighting this horrible creature, but I do not shed a tear for myself as it must be done. Nobody shall be safe until he is dead. I consider it a matter of honor to save Molyneax, my home, and your lordship from ever dealing with this monster again. But I ask of you, please, to look after Belle if I do not come back. Your friendship with her should help her in her grief over me."

The only parts they left out, of course, were that Adam's wounds were really from wolf bites he had garnered while saving Belle and the freshly stitched stab wound in his side was inflicted by their beloved Gaston and it nearly killed him; they equally left out that most of the story was pieced together from Belle's old fableaux books. Adam knew, as soon as Maurice came back from that village, that he had to help Belle come up with a story explaining why they were together and he had to make Gaston look like a hero-the latter he was not terribly happy with as he hated the man even in death. Still, it was necessary, and a little wine to take the edge off having to lionize a woud-be murderer turned into a night of drinking and laughing with her in the library, each suggestion to add getting more zany and bizarre. The one where Adam transmogrifies himself into a 50 foot dragon with a black body and a purple belly and uses Gaston's bones to pick his teeth became something of an inside joke. "Add three fairies to the story," Adam remembered asking, " you remember, the story you read me after _Romeo and Juliet_! We can make the one with the red dress conjure up bigger muscles and a huge claymore for Gaston! The fat one with the black hair can shoot hail the size of grapefruits out her rump in an attempt to distract me from a tasty morsel such as you!"

"Adam, please, that is disgusting! Nobody would ever believe it and for heaven sakes, you are a grown man. These jokes I would expect from Chip!"

"Oh come on, _petit,_ you said to be creative." he wobbled on his feet a little, and plopped down next to her on her pouf, pouring yet another glass of Cabernet. "After all, it is no more than he deserves to have a ridiculous death scene! That sick _enculé _ would have locked your father in an asylum and with me out of the way he would have had his way with you at last. You yourself said he was totally obsessed and I don't want to think about what he would have done to you with me dead. Now, we already have that bastard finding you in a trance where you are larking around singing barefoot with little birdies in a room that looks like a forest, and blonde to boot. If the sheep in Molyneux are ready to believe that my beautiful, headstrong Belle would ever degrade herself to be such a bubbleheaded idiot, they will believe anything. Belle, they sent fifty men after me and I for one think they should be fed as tall a tale as we can make. Hail farts it is!"

"Darling, be serious. Remember, nobody believed my father when he told them all what you looked like or that you even existed, furry face and all." She took a long sip of her wine. "Besides, why would I spin a yarn about a fairy with hail coming out of her rump when I have my 50 foot dragon sitting right here beside me, "she put her hand on his knee, "and knowing him and how _so very_ _mature_ he is that he would try to put on a much more prodigious display?"

Adam smiled to himself here. That version of the story was still the one that Chip kept pestering him for. Cute little tyke.

He looked down to his desk and realized there were some envelopes he needed to carefully fold his correspondence into and seal with wax. The ink was dry enough now to do it. There was a candle on the mantle with a set of matches. He got up to retrieve them and sat back down again.

Several weeks ago marked the beginning of a whole tidal wave of new responsibilites for the young couple, especially Adam-when he realized that there was little point to pay attention to Cogsworth's lessons on politics and government as an enchanted beast-man, he stopped paying attention. Now, he knew he had much to catch up with and had to do it on the job (Thank heavens for Belle's frenzy of ordering new books from all over the continent involving philosophy and political theory, the new thinking: Locke and Montesqieu were already giving him ideas of how to reign, even if they baffled and ran loggerheads with Cogsworth.) He would wake often just before dawn to start devouring books he had long forgotten and relearn lessons that he had been too stubborn and spoiled to take seriously; this was how his beloved Belle figured out that part of the problem he'd been having for so long with reading had in part to do with his need of glasses, a pair of which she presented him with along with a brand new set of quills.

Cogsworth and Lumiere both were astonished at his ever increasing pace from barely being able to read in the first few tries months ago with Belle to now being able to give his fiancee a run for her money. By breakfast he'd be firing off hundreds of questions on what he had read to Cogsworth and barking for letters from his factors telling him of news from Paris, London, Amsterdam, and Rome...and for reasons that baffled everyone, slowly as they sent these letters, he could read them without an interpreter. Passing him on the staircase one morning, Belle even chided him on his face being unshaven and his shirtlaces undone while he was still reading a scrap of parchment...and to the shock of all within earshot, including himself, he answered her flawlessly in some sort of Italian before correcting himself.

The letters to Versailles and beyond were as unending as the need to clean up the mess that was taxation and a review of finances with accountants: his father's old system was no longer necessary as most of the serfs that lived in the woodland around the castle had long since fled. Many parts of the system no longer even applied. Cogsworth had sold many of his lesser French land assets and reinvested the profit in trade over the years, so it was quite a shock when hitherto unknown obscene amounts of money located in banks in London and Amsterdam appeared, all from just old investments in mining and lumber, accruing interest. What land he did have left, the farmers, most of them freemen, were being overcharged for their grain and rent by an exorbitant price. Adam's choice of words in his joint letters to Rome and Paris were particularly damning, as it would appear that for years the Archbishop in Tours had been stealing money from taxes to lands that were not legally his, and grain profits that rightly belonged to Touraine, its people, and its Lord. The old Archbishop rained down brimstone and gall upon him in his last letter, calling him a young upstart who should mind his own business...or His Excellency threatened to tattle to the Primate at Lyon. (Ironic, since according to yesterday's letter that sat in the top drawer His Excellency the Primate was happy to catch the Archbishop of Tours with his hand in the cookie jar at last-he'd been waiting years for the proof.)

"At least I won't have to invite that old cheat to perform the wedding," Adam thought, taking off his signet ring and pressing his seal into the warm wax. "If he hears that my wife is not of noble blood, who knows-he might try to size her up for how to wring taxes out of her for old time's sake."


	2. Adam's thoughts, continued

For Belle, the renovation of the castle and taking her place as the new lady of the house was her responsibility. They both agreed that she was the better negotiator of the two of them, far better people sense and it was she who would deal with the people while Adam ran up the numbers. She wrote up a list of expenses each day and kept a record in her little green velvet ledger of all the transactions and minute details so that Adam could look at them before bed and carefully weigh it against their budget. (The little love notes and drawings she attached were to be kept private and secret; Mrs Potts was the soul of discretion on this point. Blessedly, she only winked at him when he sent his responses.) They wanted to make of their nest something simple, elegant, and a bit understated as far as could be done. Adam, although he had grown up in the lap of luxury, nearly fell over when he was told the total sum of his wealth when factoring in the bank accounts and non-liquid assets: in total, it made him far richer than many French lords of greater title. How he could manage it all, he did not know. How he had accrued it, well, let it be said that Cogsworth now had a small fortune of his own in thanks, and double thanks to his dear departed mother for never throwing anything out.

He glanced to the corner of the room. He remembered a time when he was a small boy and he'd hidden in a broken grandfather clock to spy on his father doing business with some English earl. Into his cups, the man would not shut up about how hard it was to gain a decent profit from his lands when Parliament was so insistent on taking its share and his wife insistent on taking hers. He was the proprietor of several large plantations in Jamaica and he still needed more to fund their appetite.

"She will be the envy of all men who look at her, "Adam promised to himself. " My mother's old jewelery is beautiful, but my Belle deserves to shine with her own diamonds, something as modern and lovely as she is. Not that she needs it, though. Mon ange loved me best when she wore nothing but a plain blue muslin dress and I had clothes that could scarcely fit me, and just wearing a pair of boots was impossible."

He looked to his right hand. Just above it in the corner of the desk was Belle's handkerchief-she had given it to him one afternoon during a quick lunch together after she noticed his hand covered in ink smudges. BMJDP. Belle Marie Josephine DuPont. Careful needlepoint decorated with bluebells (or what he assumed were once bluebells before half were covered in India ink.) In one corner there were very faint stains, droplets of blood. "I unfortunately learned a valuable lesson that day-do not attempt to embroider and read at the same time, " she told him.

Belle...

Given the grueling schedule Adam often kept, it was certainly not his place to say that Belle wasn't busy either-in the weeks since the transformation, they'd only managed to have a few brief moments together, sometimes nothing more than the occasional stolen interlude when they were sure they were alone at last. They knew this state of affairs had to continue at least until everything was ready, and finally, they could wed. According to Mrs Potts and Belle's own frequent notes, she was picking out reams of fabrics, choosing which of those fabrics went where, finding someone with knowledge of how to get moth bitten tapestries restored (and taking inventory of their provenance,) speaking to carpenters, masons, and blacksmiths to restore furniture and fix damage in the West Wing, writing letters to Paris to find a man with knowledge on how to properly clean paintings and portraits, call upon solicitors to make ready with horse traders for the stables, and meet with the staff every other morning to run the household.

She had fittings for her wedding dress to attend to, fittings for new gowns, fighting with Angelique over what the final results should be in Adam's bedroom, and in her last note to him she said she was thankful only that the guest list could not be finalized until Adam was finished alerting people that no, he had not died in a faraway land or fallen into oblivion. (He wrote back that perhaps them knowing he was not alive was better than them now knowing where he had been hiding all this time-it closed the door on the opportunity to run away with her.) Mademoiselle also insisted on personally restoring and modernizing the prior duchess's old garden herself and had spent the first few nights scribbling out drawings of what she wanted.

It had only been one week ago that Adam realized how long it had been since he had been able to have real, uninterrupted time with his wife-to-be. He had sent her a message through Mrs. Potts; Belle in turn attempted to send one through one of his accountants. The entire staff got a good laugh at Mademoiselle and Monsieur falling asleep outside each other's rooms. They found Belle soundly asleep in a wingback just across from Adam's study, her face smeared with dirt and cuts on her legs from doing battle with a nasty nettlebush. Adam had gone to the East Wing looking for Belle-and had fallen asleep in a chaise lounge, using Sultan as a pillow. He woke up with a mouth full of dog hair and Cogsworth standing over him, tapping his foot.

And four days ago, he managed to sneak a candle into bed, careful not to wake his erstwhile roommate, Maurice: as his future father-in-law was having his own apartments built in the basement as the new court inventor, and as Adam's bedroom was in the process of being made more habitable for a human couple rather than a large, furry chimera, they were sharing what used to be his grandfather's old bedroom. Silently, in the night, he went over several drafts. Maurice snored loudly, his somniloquy a good indicator of the time: out of the corner of Adam's eye, from the desk at the foot of his bed, he could see Maurice clutching a hidden, bookmarked translation of Principia Mathematica under his pillow and muttering something about shaking hands with a Monsieur Newton. (Adam had wondered where that book he ordered had gone off to-now he knew.) By the time the birds outside his window were waking up to start the day, he had a letter ready for Belle:

_Chérie,_

_You and I deserve better than to be stealing moments in dark staircases after dusk. We deserve better than to speak in hushed tones when we barely have time to regroup from this Leviathan task of starting our lives together, and we should not have to sneak away in the early mornings just to do what every man and his woman take for granted-looking into each other's eyes...among other things .) To say that I am as frustrated as you are is not quite accurate, for I feel I want to roar and rage like I used to if I cannot see you. At least I can be assured, that way, that there shall never be any interruptions. No nagging accountants, no servants peeking from behind doors, no Angelique, no cares, nobody but you and I-as it should be._

_You were unaware of it, but yesterday I could not sleep, so I tiptoed to the East Wing, just one more time to see you. Your door was shut, and if I pressed my ear to the door, I could hear the even sound of your breathing. I turned the key to see what was inside, and there you were-the first lights of dawn dancing in their display of pink and mint so gentle in their touch of your face but still more than enough for me to see you in the dark. You were still, and brown hair was strewn all over the pillows in a tousled mess, and your lips were parted slightly, soft and warm and so achingly close...but ah, that would have awakened you and alerted you to my presence. You were lying on your side, the contours of your hips just visible from under the sheets, and you were clutching your pillow tight, hugging it close to you. Ma belle, ma belle, it was one of the sweetest sights I had seen since the magic had revealed me to you and I could not resist. I wanted to get closer to hear what you were murmuring in your sleep, into the pillow, so I lay down behind you to put my arms around you. I tried to curl myself up, catlike, next to your little shape and breathe in the smell of your hair, but I think the shifting of my weight on the bed must have made you stir a little and turn over towards me, because you placed your left arm around my waist..._

_And you said my name. My real name._

_On Friday night I propose that, at least for a while, we put the Leviathan aside and have a real dinner together...and a real discussion. I have been longing to tell you everything I have felt and thought since that fateful night you set me free, as at last it is all coming back to me in a way that I was not ready to share nor could fully remember while I was in my confinement. Do not fret about the rosebushes-I have already asked the gardener to adhere strictly to your plans and told him to see to it that his mistress ceases work promptly at 5pm._

_- Bête_

PS- Here is something I found hidden under a pile of papers last night.. See if you can figure out what it means.

...sic erit; haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae,

et possessa ferus pectora versat Amor.

Cedimus, an subitum luctando accendimus ignem?

cedamus! leve fit, quod bene fertur, onus.

Adam took off his new reading glasses and rubbed his eyes, letting out a sigh of relief. The work for the day was finished. He put down his quill and looked to the clock near the mantle. He had just enough time to take a bath, shave, and speak to Mrs. Potts about the dinner he had planned.

It was time to tell her what he had promised he would tell her when he was ready. He could remember it all now, start to finish. He rose from his desk, organized his papers for another day, and headed for the bucket so he could put out the fire in the fireplace.


	3. Chapter 3: Belle

III. Belle, Part 2

"Whoa, Belle, whoa, easy girl! You aren't going to meet the Master if you fall and break your neck! Sit down, child, let us do the work; he is only a man and if he is to be a husband he must know women are expected to be a little late!"

Belle had flown like a bat out of hell up the main staircase to the East Wing and rushed down the corridor. She nearly tripped over poor Chip, playing with his tin soldiers on the floor with his brother and scrambling to stuff something in his back pocket. She had hardly noticed the irises two maids were inspecting to be put on the table near the entrance to her room, and cut between them just to reach the front door. Madame Armoire had literally just caught her, the inertia of which knocked them both over and sent Belle's hat flying.

Catching her breath, Belle rose up and straightened her skirts. "What time is it, Madame? Is there enough time to make ready? Is... le chou... ready?"

Madame Armoire laughed and straightened up tall, putting a pin back in her blonde hair. "No worries, Belle; Babette and the others are three doors down putting the last few touches on le chou. It should be ready in time for the big reveal to Master-and if I must say, it certainly should be more than enough to get his attention."

Belle smiled a little at this. Le chou was their code word for a top secret endeavor that Belle had hoped would be ready by the time her fiance's workload was lessened, but his invitation for tonight changed the plan. She had secretly sent a manservant to Paris to pick up a bolt of blue silk so that Madame Armoire and a few of the maids of the East Wing could make a new dress for Belle, something stylish...and perhaps to tease her husband-to-be a little with the cut of the top of it. Adam had already told her that she was free to peruse whatever jewelery the servants could find belonging to his mother, but some of the pieces, though beautiful, were a bit extravagant and better served a grand ballroom at a royal residence than a simple date with her fiance. She would tuck those away for another time, and keep to only one piece: a single large blue teardrop sapphire pendant encrusted with tiny white pearls on the end of a silver chain, just long enough to call attention to that swell of skin just above the edge of the stomacher.

"Are you certain that all you want is the pendant, my dear? The pearl earrings would look ravishing on you, darling! They would match the freshwater pearls on the dress beautifully and would go nicely with the lace trim on the sleeves!"

Belle shook her head, and ducked behind the screen in the corner, taking off her clothes one item at a time and flinging them over the top for Madame to take-she had refused to let members of the household undress her once she learned this was the custom and the best compromise she could come up with was to undress behind a screen. "It is awfully nice of you to say such things, Madame, but I have made up my mind; I think this necklace is more than enough. What I will need your help with, however, is covering up all the cuts on my legs."

"The nettlebush, again?"

"No, just a rose that would not behave no matter how many times I tried to wind it around some wire."

"I don't think that shall be a problem dearie, as you just have to see the new stockings that came this morning! So sheer they could be see through but opaque enough to cover those nasty cuts. However, Belle, I think it is high time I discussed with you a matter that all fine ladies of your station are taking to in droves; my stars, the manservant went on and on about it like you wouldn't believe!"

"What might that be?" Belle peeked out, pinning up her hair into a loose bun. "And what is this I hear about station?-You know how I feel. I don't intend to become one of those awful women who always has her nose in the air as if the whole world smells offensive to her."

Madame waved away the remainder of the maids to attend other duties; one handed her a stack of towels. "Belle, we both know that there are some practices at Versailles that you are going to have to take on to be accepted in that circle, at least on the surface. The Master has been getting daily reports that Louis expects a certain kind of behavior that most would consider, "she struggled to find the word, "conservative, especially in light of the new thinking coming from the court of the Empress in Salzburg or the generous attentions given to the new professional class at the Court of St. James."

"Yes, I am well aware of that", she said, letting a stocking fly over the screen; to Madame Armoire's displeasure it had a hole in the toe. "I wish it were otherwise. After all, I outright refuse to wear those horrible beehive wigs the ladies of the court wear, the ones covered in powder and are so large that a squirrel could move in up there and nobody would be the wiser until it was too late. Your Master has already told me all about the fiasco at a ball in Lyon when a rat bit the court violinist after it jumped out of his wife's wig."

"I shall certainly have to adjust to minding my tongue and playing the part of a noble's wife, and I know I am going to have to wear rouge...even though Papa believes that some of the materials they use to produce it make ladies sick and I am better off just using my own mix of madder, lanolin, and beeswax. I draw the line at my hair, though-even your Master says that after so long having hair everywhere he'd rather show off having his own hair just on his head."

Her dress and apron flew over the top. Madame Armoire carefully put it on top of her pile of towels, and sniffed-she was borrowing clothes from one of the Potts daughters again, an ugly blue-grey cotton dress that had several patches on it and plenty of mud stains. Over the top flew a bodice and a leather belt in short succession, making Madame Armoire's eyes roll-Belle's little blue muslin dress was given to Babette to compare sizes for the new gown, she knew, but she would never get over having a mistress who insisted on making do with a dress that was made for a 16 year old girl who was both taller and fuller figured than she, as the fabric had to be held in place by string and an old belt that once belonged to Mr. Potts.

"Oui, Mademoiselle, but I feel you should pay closer attention to the fashions of the court for the sake of your husband; I believe Benoît brought back plenty of articles for you to peruse, yes? For example, the ladies of the court have taken to shaving their legs and armpits; I already taken the liberty of getting a straight razor to do the honors for you tonight."

Behind the screen, Belle froze. Her eyes widened. She'd seen sheep being sheared and was not eager to be one.

"Benoît says it is all the rage and that, ahem, the husbands and beaus of Paris love it."

Belle came out from behind the screen." Why might that be, Madame?" Belle asked naively.

Oh, chérie, I forget, you are young!" Madame Armoire laughed. But given what I saw of you and the master in the hallway two weeks ago, I didn't think you were THAT young!"

"Madame, please! You know perfectly well I was only helping him find his quill box!"

Madame Armoire tilted her head in mock-skepticism, and lowered her voice. "Belle, we both know he could not have asked you to find much of anything when his mouth was all over yours. That, and men do not carry their quill boxes tucked in the back of their breeches for women to seek them, nor did the Master have any reason to go looking for "quills" by taking off your apron and feeling around the front of your corset."

Belle's eyes flashed open wide with shock-how did she? How could she? C'est impossible! In spite of herself, her face was as red as a strawberry. "Ohh, Madame Armoire, please, please, keep what you saw to yourself! Babette is such a gossip and she tells Lumière everything! Lumière will be looking to pinch me on the behind and tease me about the whole thing if he knows; Adam thinks I am imagining things but I am almost sure that wolf whistle from Monday was NOT for the gardener's daughter!"

Madame Armoire put her arm around Belle's shoulder. She had been young once, and while the castle was enchanted, it took quite a bit of effort for her husband to visit her from the West Wing-the spell had changed him into a coat rack, and it was murder trying to sneak past the Master when his feet were made of pine and the ceilings were rather high, causing echoes. "Well, dearie, I really don't think old Lumière is the one that should be talking. Let's get you ready for the tub and we'll talk all about his little, ahem, "necessary absences" with Babette promptly every day around two in the afternoon? Or how about the suspicious indentation my husband found in a pile of straw in the barn yesterday morning...right next to a feather duster?- My, my, he doesn't even bother to be careful about it anymore, now that he is human again..."

She had managed to get through her first shaving relatively intact, although it had taken some coaxing from Madame to allow the assistant maid close enough to her body with a sharp straight razor to get the job done. Belle never liked being waited on so much that she felt like a child's doll being manipulated and dressed up, but on this count she knew she was powerless. Madame Armoire had gotten an idea in her head, and she was NOT going to let go of it. For a full fifteen minutes, Belle sat upright on a stool with her feet in a bucket, terrified to move one inch and nodding at Madame's chattering on about Lumiere and Babette's latest hiding place for their encounters.

"Mamie never said I would have to endure anything like this when I came of age, that is for sure!" She winced a little as the blade passed over an old cut, but the maid tut-tutted her to remain perfectly still-she was almost finished. She blotted the blood away, and bade Belle get up of so they could finish filling up the tub. Standing there a little chilled from having wet legs, Belle waited as a brigade of women filled up the tub and the heat rose from the fresh warm water, steaming up the stained glass window above. It was a lovely window, decorated with roses and fleur-de-lys, with the upper right hand corner illustrating some old Roman ruin twisting in vines. The sunlight was still bright out, so the light dappled into the pool of water below, a bathtub shaped like a scallop shell.

"Well, Belle, it would appear that the perfumes and salts and liquid soaps you have ordered have finally found a time for use. So what shall it be today, Mademoiselle? Jasmine? Lavender? Perhaps...roses?"

"Surprise me. Nothing too strong though, I already came out of a garden and don't need to smell exactly like one."

Absolutely, Mademoiselle. Jeannette, please, the salts! Hurry up!""

Moments later, after pleading with Madame Armoire that she could manage by herself, Belle was alone at last. She reached for a small table to get to the matches, and lit a few of the candles hanging from the wall. She let her shift fall to the floor and, one leg at a time, eased herself into the warm, soapy water. Ohhhh, such relief! She shivered with pleasure and laid back in the tub-this was the first time in weeks she had allowed herself a little luxury.

The perfumes wafted up into her nostrils, and for a few minutes, she closed her eyes. "A year ago I could have never imagined anything like this. I was Belle DuPont. Just Belle. I was born in a small town on the other side of Tours; we moved to Molyneux 4 years ago after Grand-mere died. I milked the sheep we had in our small barn. I made cheese for Papa from the milk and his machine would shear the wool and spin it into yarn for me. I knitted by the fireplace and darned stockings, did the occasional needlepoint. I had a small shelf full of books. Papa and I would save up for each copy and the ones I could not buy the bookshop keeper loaned out to me. My world was always in a book, never in Molyneaux. Clashing swordsmen, far off adventures, damsels in distress, knights on their white horses. I dreamed of escaping to these worlds."

She picked up a sponge from the side of the tub, and soaked it in the water, bringing it to her shoulder. "If someone had told me that a ten foot cross between a lion, buffalo, bear, wolf, and wild boar was going to lock me away in his castle last fall, I would have thought that Philippe had kicked him in the head, hard. If somebody had said to me that I was going to be talking to teapots and clocks and even my own chiffarobe, I would have checked MYSELF into the Maison Des Lunes that very night: to me it would have been a sign that I had finally retreated so far into my fairytales and fableauxs that I no longer could tell where my dreams ended and where real life began. After all, things like that only happened in tales set four hundred years ago to rich, blonde princesses. Not inventor's daughters. Not to girls with mud brown hair and no fortune. Not in the 18th century."

She doused her face with some water, and a niggling voice told her that before, even with her doubts about the fairytales, she did hear rumors from time to time about magical folk still being around-very rare, but very much alive. And what about the fortune teller? The fortune teller, the gypsy woman who came every year during the summer solstice festival who would chase her down and frighten her, shouting a prophecy and making everyone in town feel so sorry for the poor inventor's daughter? Mama Gitana, hobbling along the lane, eyes bulging and her person smelling of cheap sherry, would shout at her back that she would marry someone of high birth, and the description was always the same: 191 cm tall, striking blue eyes, reddish blonde hair, but deformed. Her one chance at love hinged on her ability to put away childish notions, to put down her books. She had to see beyond his appearance and reach his heart, a heart that was wild and scarred and clouded by years of inner torment that no human had ever been able to reach. If she did not reach him, nothing could.

"And she would try to hand me a basket of roses. Pink roses. And she would beg me to come inside her van to hear more of this crazy notion she had, even going as far as snatching my books from me and trying to make a run for it." Belle paused for a moment. " Gaston always took the opportunity to show up at my house just before the festival to "escort me to the fair" and save me from the indignity of having to face that woman. He wasn't much help, but nobody in town dared laugh at him when Mama Gitana would stubbornly set herself down in front of his tavern , even when it was raining, with her pipe in her mouth. She would always grab him by the ear, like a school master with a spoiled child, and force him down to her level. "Handsome gadje, handsome gadje, woe betide you, Heaven have mercy upon you, the greatest in your village but the least of your people. Your ultimate quarry approaches. He is far larger than any creature you have tangled with before, and you have already seen his tracks in the snow without realizing what doom is there! Seek not to capture his mate for yourself as a trophy and seek not to hunt him in the woods beyond, for he is your mirror image and even if you possess his mate, you shall not be able to conquer him!"

She took the pins out of her hair, and shook it loose. "And then he would kick her with his boot into the mud, saying her business wasn't wanted at his tavern. If she wanted a room for the night, she would have to pay, just like everyone else, and that he didn't need the help of a dirty gypsy thief. Papa always said that gypsies were no more magical than he was, using his wrench on the wagon in the barn, and most of them don't have many other ways to get along in the world. But then again, if only I knew then what I know now...I might have accepted that basket of roses."

She lathered up her hands with soap, applying it to the rest of her. She thought about a rose in particular that seemed to connect with all the others in her life, the ones that always had a habit of showing up at different turns in her destiny...especially that basket full of them.

"I remember looking at the rose that night I ran to the forest and I knew that it was something-SOMETHING-that was the key to the whole puzzle. I had to go up those stairs. I went into a room that looked like it had been torn apart a dozen times-broken furniture everywhere, carcasses of animals, hideous statues carved as demons, and in the corner a clawed up portrait of a teenaged boy, whose eyes looked so familiar but I could not place them...and in hindsight, I should have guessed they reminded me of what the fortune teller said...and I should have thought harder about WHO had eyes that color. That must have been what kept me from running out of that den screaming at first smell of the stench of rotting flesh and made me want to ignore the footsteps I heard outside...heavy ones. And in the middle of it all, a rose that glowed pink in the darkness under a bell jar, beautiful but eery. It sparkled in a way I had never dreamed of from my books. It had a smell that wasn't anything like a rose, but like all flowers I had ever smelled before. And later, when I would catch him just staring at the rose after sunset when he thought I had gone to bed, I knew there was something there, related to that rose, that needed to heal...needed my help...needed love."

She lathered up her hair with the scented shampoo she had sent for, pausing for a moment to take a sniff-perfect, Benoît was as good as his word. It smelled just like the roses they were planting in the garden outside. Adam liked the smell of the old damask ones she had sent a sample of in a vase yesterday with a quickly scratched out drawing of herself and one of Mrs. Potts's elder daughters comically standing with one atop another's shoulders, trying to reach the top of a weed covered trellis and Angelique tut-tutting the both of them for making a scene.

The note he left on her nightstand this morning had a single yellow one attached to it: "Beautiful, mon couer, and the smell is absolutely my favorite thus far, but it is still not as beautiful as this one that I found growing on the terrace...and definitely not as beautiful as you. I believe it matches that gown you are so fond of, the one with the gold thread. Dare I ask that this is the one you shall be wearing tonight?...Or shall I sneak to the terrace so that I may see my Belle as I have had to see her while she brings my garden back to life: hair swept up under a straw hat except for small tendrils that have come undone, an ugly gray dress that obviously belongs to one of the more buxom Potts girls, dirt smudging her cheeks and hands, and muttering rather unladylike things about nettlebushes when nobody is around? Yes my love, as strange as it seems, watching you curse that nettlebush is even better than the drawings you send, as I get to see my Belle as nobody else does-mulishly stubborn, completely unaware of the effect she has on people, and having a tart vocabulary that most noblemen's wives do not dare utter in public nor have the mental agility to try..and soon, to my delight, she will be my wife, mon fascinante, ma femme exaspérante.

Here I should also mention that you've guessed right. I do occasionally get to see things before you write about them to me; I set up an old telescope on the terrace to take a look at your progress and when I can sneak away from Cogsworth, I do. Tell Elizabeth Potts that she should not loosen her stays because although I am told it makes it easier for a girl to bend down, it attracts the attention of the assistant gardener. I already am having a difficult time controlling Lumiere, absolutely gone mad with the fact that he is human again and don't need the headache of keeping a 16 year old apprentice away from a fourteen year old girl.

On the other hand, we both know I am having a difficult time as well, mon chérie, keeping myself at a distance from you and often failing miserably..as you can see, this note is prime evidence that I was here this morning. So who am I to tell a lovesick boy what he can and cannot do, even with Mrs. Potts nagging me about her little Betty liking the attention a little too much? Come to think of it, who am I to speak at all when I behave the way I do as I watch you? I am relieved, because I have managed to send away Cogsworth for a time so that I may dash to the balcony and see my Belle in her element. Conflicted, that I shouldn't wish for that belt to come loose again, as I know how much it frustrates you when it does but also enjoying the view-I am a man now, after all, but even the most mild mannered gentleman needs something to bring out the Beast in him. Very amused, because on the occasions it comes loose, if my lip reading skills are correct, you rain down fire upon the workmen that DARE stare at you-that is my girl, definitely! Jealous, because I can see how the workmen look at you and would love to glare back at them that you are MY fiancee, and underscore my point by whisking you away somewhere to fix that awful dress you insist upon. Above all, I am frustrated, because I cannot come down to join you even if I wanted to. Cogsworth always eventually finds me here with some letter from Amsterdam, and besides, if I peer through my telescope you are always standing in a sea of gladiolus plants. Alas, I wouldn't even get sick enough to give us the excuse that you need to rush to my bedside!"

She sunk her head under the water and rinsed out her hair. Tonight, soon, she would be with him. She wished she had time to write out her response, but it would have to wait for dinner. As she came up for air, she giggled at what she wished she could have written. "Chéri, don't you know any better than to ogle at a woman who is not yet even married, not yet even given spoken with the priest nor published the banns of marriage? Her father might yet have to defend her honor at a gentleman such as you simply having the temerity to suggest that she must immediately rush to his bedside, as her rumpled dress is known by so many men to have the bad habit of slipping and sliding off in a few key spots?

Besides,, wouldn't that imply (since she knows you break out in hives at the mere suggestion of gladiolus pollen) she might have to see you en deshabille? And wouldn't that be a grave sin, to have carnal knowledge, like a Beast, of his mate before they are properly wed? Shame on you, sir! (I should also add that the next time you and I want to meet before the sun is up, please, be more careful-you fell asleep with your shirt off this morning and although I did enjoy waking up in your arms, I did have to call Mrs Potts and one of the stable boys to make sure our secret was safe...I should also tell you that your stubble tickles me awake when you bury your head into my shoulder like that-how many times have I told you that you must keep up with the shaving, even with much less hair on your body?)

"Jeanette, I think I am ready. Please call Babette and ask her if le chou is ready to be laid out. It is time!"


	4. Chapter 4: The Majordomo in His Element

Cogsworth stood at the bottom of the grand staircase before a massive crowd. He lived for things like this-now that the Master had taken his rightful place in the nobility and had broken the spell, the world could make sense again. And who better to aide his Master, now a man of great substance and character, than his trusted majordomo? Cogsworth knew that the Duc now trusted him more than any other servant as he had thanked him most generously for his astute business decisions, in particular regarding trade, with a large retirement fund now accruing interest on its very own. Starting when Adam was just a boy, Cogsworth saw the value in venture capitalism with shipping companies in Amsterdam, mining interests in the Orient, and lumber and sugar from the Americas. (He even secretly invested in British ships so that in case one side threw a fit and started a war, the Master would always profit-a stroke of genius given the querrolous rivalry between the two thrones.) Ah yes, his Lord, although his head was turned with some bizarre thing he read about called a social contract, was flourishing in a way that Cogsworth would never have predicted before.

The Master's mind, to Cogsworth's thinking, was far sharper than it once had been. He took counsel even when the news wasn't good, and though he still had an explosive temper, he was quicker to forgive. Adam was taking to the task of manhood in a way that his late father could be very proud of. To Cogsworth's astonishment, many weeks ago his Lord had even sent him out into the countryside to survey the condition of his subjects and report back to him on their needs and care-something that his Lord would have absolutely balked at when he was young, petulantly dismissing them as vermin who should die faster and choke on their own putrid stench. But no more-Adam was very, very pleased with Cogsworth's most recent news of the welfare of his people. Because of Cogsworth's decisions while the castle was still enchanted, the people of Touraine, with the exception of the debacle involving the Archbishop, were faring much better than expected...and weeks into Adam's reign, they continued to prosper.

Cogsworth promised himself he would live up to the Master's new expectations and be the best second in command he could be. He cleared his throat. He felt more than just four feet taller than he had been as a clock; he felt like a giant. "As you very well know, we have all been extremely busy readying the castle to receive guests on a grander scale and to make it more habitable for the Master and his bride. We are to expect, now that we are now all human again, that contact with the outside world shall only grow with time, that a certain standard must be set, and that many among you shall be sent out into that world doing various tasks that must be completed in a timely, smooth fashion. The Master is well aware of your eagerness to see the world after such a long time and to introduce the youngest members of this castle to the niceties from which they have been deprived for so long, but he cannot, I repeat, cannot promise all of you shall see it in a timely fashion as there are many things that must be taken care of right here at home before discussions of taking leave are appropriate."

"We have had to take on more staff as our needs have expanded-you all are well aware of the need to hire new men in the stables and the grand parade of new people coming in and out of this castle-it is the Master's wish that you not frighten them away as they are unaware of the enchantment and thus unaware of your, ahem, fascination with them."

As everyone knows, the West Wing is being totally redone, the gardens are being replanted, the collection of paintings in this castle are being restored, the tapestries are being preserved, and there is the matter of the Mistress's father getting apartments of his own. I believe that most of you have spoken to our new composer, Fife. Many of you are hard at work with Angelique cleaning up the mess in the West Wing and helping Maestro Fife build the new music room. I am also inclined to believe most of you have had quite a time enjoying Maestro's talents."

There was a murmur of agreement. Lumière clapped Fife on the back and smiled at him. Fife had been doing a wonderful job as chief composer by day and as chief entertainer and soother of nerves by night. He was just as handy with a saw as he was with flutes and violins: each day he would write his music, direct the staff in reconstructing the music room, and with a little help from Maurice he would pore over plans the Master had given them for something called a "pianoforte." But nighttime was when Fife really shone: he had been given leave enthusiastically by the Master to play music in the staff's quarters after dark and let them relax after a day of work was done. Lumière would sing, of course, and occasionally Mrs. Potts would stop by after putting her children to bed for a dance, but the best was, surprisingly, Maurice-an avid guitar player.

Cogsworth continued, " Our new Mistress has spoken to each and every one of you about what she wants her household to look like, and you all know exactly where you fit in her plans. Many of you that have the East Wing as part of your charge know that nothing changes this weekend. Her wedding dress must still be worked upon and fittings must continue to take place. Mademoiselle LeFavre, I believe you are to head off to Orleans as the Mistress has given you the address of the remainder of her family. "

"Oui, Monsieur, my brother and I leave on the gig at dawn."

"Good. Now, Elizabeth and Jane Potts, I trust you are both here in your mother's place, to take her instruction while she assists the chef with the Master's dinner?"

Two girls, fourteen and sixteen, gave a cursory curtsy; their little brother bowed. "Yes, Mr. Cogsworth, we are here."

"Very good. You are to oversee the kitchen while she tends to the Master and Mistress this weekend personally; I believe she has given you, Jane, the responsibility of bringing in the new crockery from the blacksmith tomorrow morning and your sister is to attend to brewing beer and restocking our provisions in the root cellar. Chip, as ever, you are to take your lessons in the morning with Père Damien, and be back by one to assist the pastry chef, learning your trade."

"Yes sir. Mama is already in the kitchen with Peter and we are ready to look after Chip and our charges. The blacksmith has given word that he arrives at noon from Levreaux."

Jane waited for Cogsworth's attention to fall upon another member of the staff, and carefully positioned herself where there were plenty of taller people ahead of her. She looked at her sister with her eyes widened-_**NOW**__, Betty!_ Betty nodded, and squeezed her little brother's hand, her signal to take the note and the scarf out of the front of her apron. Chip looked up at his sister and just as quickly his little hands dove into her apron, taking out the precious treasures and stuffing them in his pockets. Now, all that was left was for him to carefully look through the forest of legs and feet for an opening...Mama said that he had to be very careful not to make a sound...

"...Monsieur LeDoux, you are to leave for Tours tomorrow to fetch the Master's wedding suit and then onwards to Paris to speak to his factors in the city; we have already spoken on the matter and I believe that you understand you are to be received at his aunt's townhouse by her son. The Dowager Duchess is eager to hear more news regarding her nephew and his new wife-to-be, and as you know, she is well connected to His Majesty's circle."

"Oui Monsieur, I shall be taking the chaise."

"Now ladies of the East Wing, the Mistress requests that if you have any questions, you must refer to Lumière, who has her written instructions. She does not wish to be bothered for the entire weekend unless absolutely necessary; Babette, I believe she has entrusted the plans to you as well; Angelique, you know what to do."

"Oui Monsieur!" they chorused.

Surreptitiously Lumière looked out of the corner of his eye to see two little tiny feet disappear around a corner, through the corridor leading to the kitchen. Good-Betty had done her part, and Chip was on his way. He had told Mrs. Potts yesterday morning that he knew what was really going on, thanks to Babette. He promised her that he would not let on to the Master that he knew much of anything (as per usual, as he usually knew more than Cogsworth) and he would try to convince Cogsworth to let her ten year old, Peter, assist her in getting dinner up to the West Wing, and see to it that Cogsworth was distracted enough so that Chip had a chance..in case it came to that.

"The horse traders have already surveyed our needs and I have been assured that we shall be getting fine horseflesh indeed; the Master has equally made provisions for many of you to negotiate for your own needs as well as the needs of this castle. I am assured that the Mistress shall have a new horse befitting a lady's mount and her favorite, Phillipe, is to have a new companion as we are in need of a new draft horse to clear the road for those that wish to approach the castle from the North. What I am not assured of is that the expansion and refitting of the stable is complete and provisions for these horses are ready. Can you assure me of that, Monsieur Prejean?

"Oui Monsieur. The oats arrived this morning from Molyneux."

"Splendid, sir, splendid, Now, for the last thing. The Master has ordered that he and his lady are not to be disturbed tonight, or all weekend, for whatever reason, unless absolutely necessary. That means no chattering with them about the wedding, the running of the house, minding our merriment after dark with Maestro Fife, and certainly nobody must mention the incident in which the whole household saw them fall asleep outside each other's doors. Alright-DISMISSED!"

Lumière followed after Cogsworth, because he knew that not everyone had gotten the gist of what the Master and Mistress wanted. The last time Cogsworth had a romantic inkling was not so much a memory that people had trouble grasping, but were disturbed by even thinking about it. "Cogsworth, try to wind down abeet. We 'ave been ze soul of discretion on ze matter of zere romance and you must admeet zis is razzer impresseev for an 'ousehold of over 900."

"Yes, well, some of us could work on our discretion, Lumière; you and Babette have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, as I see it. Come to think of it, weren't you the one who was supposed to fetch the Master's telescope from the terrace this morning?"

Lumière paused. He was not going to take the bait. "Well, Cogsworth, per 'aps you should 'eed what za master said to you zis morning, after grumpily finding 'imself with Maurice and not Belle as 'is bed mate."

"First of all, Lumière, it was dark in that room and the poor boy who carried the master in there could not have known he prefers to sleep on the small single bed near the desk. Secondly, poor Maurice got the shock of his life when his son-in-law was hugging him like a teddy bear and kept on calling him _ ma jeune fille en fleur, _I think it is enough of an indignity to Maurice that the Master roared for the two of us to come and witness such a scene let alone speak of it. And lastly, we promised Mrs. Potts we would not let on how much we know about the Master's love letters to Belle and his sneaking off to be with her lately to catch a nap in her bed before work..."

"Don't change ze subject, Cogsworth. You know very well zat I get regular reports from Babette and say as leetle as possible unless it iz obvious. 'Owever, ze master deed roar at you loud and clear, zat after zis eevning, you were not to deesturb 'im until at least Tuesday afternoon. Ze Master said zat unless ze four 'orsemen of ze apocoleepse show up, 'e would 'ave no interest, and quite frankly, I agree wiz 'im-ze man needs some time wiz iz bride! 'e 'as been waiting for so long to finally be alone wiz her,no sanks to you!. "

Cogsworth twiddled his mustache and sighed..."Oh alright. Fine. It isn't like I have to do any work around here while he is running off to play Cassanova like a lovesick puppy. Do I ever get thanks? No...never...Nobody ever considers that I have to keep everything together or ever seems to appreciate all that I do around here..."

And they argued down the hallway like that for the rest of the evening, until Mrs. Potts found them later, scolding them to keep quiet-her sons had just gone to bed.


	5. Chapter 5: Chip's Question

Adam straightened up and looked at himself in the mirror: it was a good fit. During all this confusion and chaos, he hadn't managed to find as much time to get fitted for many clothes by his tailor as he would have liked, but fortunately it would seem that he had taken after his father in terms of his height and build: a few alterations here and there, a few ruffles cut off and new cufflinks added, and he was ready to go. The overcoat was black with gold buttons and trim and had a matching waistcoat underneath, with a new breast pocket sewn in for his new glasses, now gently tucked in there in case there was a new story to read. His breeches were light blue, solid but simple, and his hair was tied back with a single blue ribbon. The only new things he managed to have made were a few pairs of buckle shoes and two new pairs of deerskin boots, one black, one brown. He didn't care as much about getting himself new clothes as he was making sure Belle had everything a new wife could dream of, but he insisted on the sole point of having new shoes, something he hadn't felt on his feet in years: he wiggled his toes in them every morning just for the sensation of it after he put a pair on.

Looking at the rest of him in a mirror was sometimes still a revelation, as he didn't always recognize the man blinking at him. He was not the teenage boy in the painting anymore, but he was not a ten foot tall creature with sharp fangs. By his own estimates, he was nearly six hundred pounds lighter, four feet shorter, and when he spoke, the voice he felt come out of him was far less coarse and austere, and more often punctuated by mirth and good humor.

And he couldn't be happier.

He had left express instructions with Mrs. Potts. Belle was to go down to the dining room to find his note telling her to put on the blindfold when she arrived at the top of the stairs of the West Wing. From there, he had enlisted Chip. Chip had thus far kept the big secret that Adam had a big surprise in the room waiting for Belle and that he was the one who had to walk her to the door of his bedroom, open it, and lead her to the center of the room, where Adam would be waiting. (Chip had been so excited for days now-during the day, Adam often caught him in the corridors with his older brother, pretending to play tin soldiers but surreptitiously hiding a little blindfold between the two of them to help Chip practice..) Once in the room, Belle would have the blindfold taken off, and she'd be in a room absolutely overflowing with candlelight, and the surprise would unfold, and...and...

Adam felt an excited tug on his overcoat. He looked down to see a little boy with bright blonde hair and gray eyes, with a beaming, gapped tooth grin. "Mama says Belle has finished getting dressed and is heading to the dining room. She looks awful pretty, Master, and it's nearly time for her to come up!"

He took out his pocketwatch: he'd been standing there longer than he'd thought. "Well then, I guess that means we'd better hurry. Climb on!" He scooped up the boy onto his back and trotted down the corridor, exaggeratedly bouncing his step so that Chip could get a little thrill. Putting a giggling Chip down at the door, he quickly asked, "Now son, did your sisters give you the blindfold? Did you put it with the note on the table like I asked you to?"

"Uh-huh. And nobody saw me, just like you said! Pete said I would get caught, but I was so little and everybody was too busy listening to Cogsworth that I got away!"

"Excellent. Now, Belle should be coming up those stairs any minute. Do you remember what I told you about not saying anything to her so she won't know it is you?"

Uh-huh. Pete and me have been practicing real hard, Master-he couldn't get me to laugh when we put Mama in a blindfold last night or nothing."

"That's good, Chip. Now, do you have any questions before we try this?"

"Yeah, I was hoping I could ask you something-"

"Yes?"

"What is _la jeune fille en fleur_ and why did you make Mama get out of bed when you were shouting about it?"

Adam startled. He had forgotten that Mrs. Potts had a bedchamber that adjoined with her two youngest sons, Chip and Peter. Naturally the two boys would have been wakened by the sound of two heterosexual men horrified at the prospect of having gotten a little too close to each other in a bed. But now was definitely not the time to explain to a six year old boy why men in their twenties like to sneak around with the women they intend to marry, and why it is upsetting to almost spoon your father-in-law. There had been enough scarring to go around already. Adam needed a lie-quick.

"Ummm, well, Chip, sometimes even grownups get a scare when they think they see things in their bedroom. I thought I saw something in there next to Uncle Maurice, he got scared too, and your Mama, Lumière, and Cogsworth calmed us both down."

"But then why did you call somebody a young lady in flower?-Mama helps me and Pete with monsters under our beds, but we don't call them anything like that."

Adam made a mental note-it is a good thing little boys take phrases like the one he shouted literally. "Your mother thinks it is best that with this monster I try to make fun of it. Unfortunately, it turned out not to be the monster this time and I woke up Uncle Maurice and everybody else instead."

"Is it a giant plant monster? Bigger than the ones Belle is planting in the garden?"

"Something like that. Now, are you ready to go and get Belle and bring her here?"

"Okay." Chip hurried off to the end of the corridor where the top of the stairs were. _Adults are weird_, he thought. Everybody knew monsters, that lived in closets and under beds looked a lot scarier than some stupid plant, even girl monsters. Maybe because the Master looked like a Beast before, he was afraid of scary plants...big ones.


	6. Chapter 6: Alone At Last

As Belle walked towards him, lead by a beaming Chip, Adam looked at his wife-to-be and was, as ever, mesmerized at how beautiful she was. This woman had set him free and loved him when nobody else would, not even himself. She argued with him when nobody else dared, and could roar as loudly as he could, rowing with him round after round, measure for measure.. She drove him half mad with how stubborn she could be, and made him howl with laughter with her little idiosyncracies, the ones that made him catch tiny glimpses of an eccentric old man he knew, the one who was about to take up living in his basement. She taught him how to see the world as a place of wonder and adventure, to love it for what it could be, and dream of worlds where even where it was dark and miserable, there was always the chance of hope and light. And above all, she reminded him he was a man... and she made him feel like one.

Chip took Belle's hand and then he took Adam's, trying to connect the two, and gave a big double thumbs up to Adam, who stifled a chuckle. _Go, Chip, your mother is waiting_, Adam mouthed, and little Chip's eyes twinkled-he did it! He succeeded at the biggest job in the castle; he helped the Master! Careful to avoid some of the candles around him, he skipped towards the door and shut it quickly behind him. "Mama, Pete, I did a real good job," he whispered. "I didn't even laugh once when she tried to reach for my hair instead of my hand."

. Tonight, she was wearing a new gown. It was silk with lace trim at the sleeves and front ; with small pearls sewn into the fabric. From her left arm a silk bag hanged, and her hand held a new fan. It was partially expanded-he could make out the features of a phoenix painted on the fabric. Her chocolate brown hair was swept into loose curls and tendrils of her hair spilled over her collarbone, creamy white with a circle of beauty marks on the left side, the ones Adam noticed in the wee hours when he went to see her, when they could cuddle in secret. Achingly, he noted that the neckline of this one plunged down farther than either her yellow ballgown or her shift. The stomacher pushed her breasts up and together, framing her décolletage, and created two perfect swells against the delicate fabric, accentuated every time she inhaled.

The Beast in him purred. He let his eyes linger for a moment longer to note the sapphire pendant tantalizingly nested in the crevice of her cleavage. It had once been his mother's he noted, and his father had given it to her to match her eyes. And now, it was his to give to Belle. He knew his Belle was a modest, sober girl who was typically more interested in delving into a translation of Homer than swishing her skirts and batting her eyes at men, and for that, he loved her. But tonight it would appear that she was in a more generous, inviting mood.

He tilted her chin up, and kissed her softly on the lips. He whispered in her ear, "Well, Belle, did you manage to solve the puzzle yet?"

"If you mean that the person who was to lead me here was not an adult, then I suppose, yes."

"No, Belle. I meant the passage I gave you. Sic erit; haeserunt tenues in corde sagittae...?"

"Damn you! I couldn't find that passage anywhere in the library no matter how many times I asked Madame Armoire to search for it! You knew I would never find it and I don't have time to snoop around that library myself! I know the note said i had to solve a riddle, am taking the blindfold off anyway; I feel like a fool standing here like this!"

Adam couldn't help but laugh, but stopped her hand when she tried to get at the knot that held the blindfold in place behind her head. "Tsk, tsk, Belle, not just yet. My surprise is something I have been working hard enough just to conceal from you and I won't have you spoil it like this. But if you must know, it is from a famous Latin poet, and it means, " he paused here to get at the knot himself, " Thus it will be; slender arrows are lodged in my heart/and Love vexes the chest that it has seized/ Shall I surrender or stir up the sudden flame by fighting it?/I will surrender - a burden becomes light when it is carried willingly. "

"**NOW...OPEN YOUR EYES."**

Belle's eyes opened, and she gasped at the awesome sight all around her. Their master bedroom, at last, was finished!. To her left, and over Adam's shoulder, she could see a beautifully carved canopy bed made of walnut, with roses that curled around the posts in a near exact match to the pattern they curled around the balcony outside. It was resplendent with large brocade curtains and a brand new mattress made of goose down; the pillows were piled high upon it in what seemed like their dozens. It had matching nightstands on either side of the bed. They each had the crest of Touraine carved into the top drawer, and the one on the right side of the bed had a copy of _Á Midsummer Night's Dream_ getting pride of place. Belle's copy. And a fresh, brass candelabra that would be perfect for a nighttime read.

There was a small pouf in the corner where Sultan was lying contently, sated and sleepy after gnawing on an impossibly large T bone. The room was painted a lovely shade of blue, with cream colored carved plaster moulding at the top that had a distinctive leaf pattern, just like the one she had in her bedroom. To her left and behind her near the door, there was a small sitting area with brand new furniture-it was the same set of chairs and sofas she had seen in a catalog that she had sent for from Paris, only customized to go with the rest of the room: the upholstery was made of satin and had alternating, subtle striping. The fireplace no longer had cherubs and angels holding up pillars, but rather had Corinthian columns holding up the mantle, and carved into the marble were little ivy vines, twisting around it. At the center of the mantle was a figure that looked like it had a lion's head, bison's horns, and boar's tusks...at least to the casual eye. In front of the fireplace there was a small table set for two with a large covered tray full of something delicious, and a bottle of wine-obviously, this was their dinner. In the corner near the fireplace to her right, was an old rocking chair, the one she had in the cottage with her father. It had been newly painted and the arm rest had been repaired. An old woolen blanket her grandmother had knitted for her as a little girl was folded neatly upon the seat. In an ornate script, somebody had carved a set of initials into its headboard: BJMDP.

She looked up in amazement at the ceiling, her eyes like saucers. The mural had a trompe l'œil perspective; it was exactly what she remembered seeing in the sky while walking the grounds with Adam.; It was the night sky in spring over the castle, with delicate tracings of the constellations. The stars were painted in gold leaf, and they shone in reflection of all the scores of candles that Adam had lit and placed all over the room, making the whole place glow.

"Belle, if you look to your left there are two panels in the well of the grandfather clock, behind the pendulum. Press the first, and it shall open up into a private bathroom. Press the second, closer to the bottom, and it shall open to a passage that leads above our heads and back to the East Wing."

She picked up her skirts, burning with curiosity, and went straight to the clock, grabbing the pendulum. She felt with her right hand, and indeed, there were two pressure pads. She pushed the first, and quickly, the small bookcase to her left slid into a hidden compartment. He followed her close behind to catch her reaction to what she saw: an inviting little nook with a bathtub large enough for two people, and shaped just like the scallop shell bath she had in the East Wing. There was a shaving kit for Adam, and a bootjack next to very neatly polished new boots, his pride and joy. There was even a little vanity for her to sit at and dress herself...complete with new combs and brushes for her hair.

"How do I get it to close again?"

"Tug down on the pendulum. It should sink lower than its normal position and then go right back up again."

Belle gave a hearty tug, and watched the bookcase slide seamlessly back into its former position. "I can't believe you did all this for us!"

"_Petit_, I did it with an army of helpers; do not forget. I asked your father for some of the technical work; his apartments also require a similar mechanism to the one we have. In fact, I should mention that the passage to the East Wing is not totally complete as we need to pick a day to build a door at the other end. I would have had it finished by tonight, "he said with a smirk, "But Babette and Lumiere have been getting suspicious with carpenters visiting your room of late when you are not in it."

"How did you manage to keep something like this a secret from most of the house? From me?"

He took her arm, and began to lead her towards the small table. "I realized that you and Angelique were never going to reach an agreement, and most of Angelique plans were wildly off the mark for what we agreed we wanted. I told Mrs. Potts to sneak past you and Angelique to snatch the plans at my request, so the carpenters and painters and carvers could finally get to work. I then told Angelique she was no longer required for the Master's apartments and that she was not to tell you that I had already started building."

"But how did you get the rocking chair? I thought Papa had left it behind in Molyneaux!"

"I sent some of the guards after it. Your Papa asked me to gather the remainder of his effects that he could not have taken with him when he left Molyneux. We both agreed that it was best that he not return himself to get anything from the cottage, and he mentioned this chair," Adam pointed to it. "Your mother and your grandmother used to read to you in it, didn't they?"

"Yes. They did. "

"Your Papa said that it is something he wanted you to have for your wedding. He took the liberty of carving your initials into it...and mine are under the seat, next to your mother's and father's. Hopefully, we shall mark each new generation on that chair..and since I acquired the books your mother read to you as well from the cottage, we will be able to tell them the same stories, too."

She leaned forward over the table, and kissed him on the lips. "Adam, I almost don't know what to say. This room is more beautiful than I could hope for."

"Are you certain? There is still time to build a separate secret passage to the library, too, Belle. While I was still covered in fur I shouldn't have just given it to you-I should've charged you rent or reported to then king you'd declared your own republic in there!"

"Hey!" she gave him a half serious swat on the shoulder. It's just a compliment; there's no need to be fresh! Didn't anyone ever teach you not to get smart with the woman who lifted your curse and saved

you?"

With very quick reflexes, he snatched the fan out her other hand and stretched it out with his hands, fanning himself with it. It covered the lower two thirds of his face, so as to draw attention to him batting twinkling blue eyes in mock innocence.

"Me? A mighty Beast such as I? Make a joke at your expense? _Jamais_!"

She laughed.

"Yes, of course, _mon couer_, I know what you mean. At last, now, we have a space that is just for us. No cares. No intrusions...just quiet...and a good dinner to eat."

"Well, maybe not just a good dinner to eat, Adam."

"What do you mean?"

Belle reached for her handbag, and pulled out a very familiar looking mirror. "I have been wondering for weeks if this thing still works. I didn't use it tonight because I wanted to be surprised, but sometimes, it is a good thing to have to keep track of Papa or the others. _**Show me Fife!"**_

Instantly, the mirror started to glow and without hesitation, Fife the musician appeared in the mirror, playing a lively jig, accompanied by Maurice. The staff was clapping and singing along, and Belle looked at her Beast with a mischievous look in her eye, offering him her hand. There was just enough time to dance on the terrace before their supper got cold.


	7. Chapter 7: The Eye in the Darkness

The embers of the fireplace were dying down, and there in the corner of the room, upon the large canopy bed, lay two figures, the drapes of the bed open just enough to make out their shapes in the moonlight. The smaller one, the woman, was curled up contently with her hair undone and her makeup slightly smeared, her much smaller frame tucked gently into the contours of the side of her mate with her head upon his chest, deeply snuggled under the bearskin blanket. The larger figure was lying on his back, snoring slightly, his auburn hair messily undone, his lips smeared with lipstick. One could not imagine a more contented, sated pair as these. Alone at last, with the night as the only witness.

The detritus of the evening lay in evidence all around them-a half drunken bottle of wine over the mantle. A once delicious meal was picked to the bone and lay cold upon the china: a roast pheasant with wild rice and port sauce, roast parsnip, and chocolate strawberries, all gone. Candles, once totally new, had been snuffed out, the wax weeping down their canes onto the furniture and floors in little cataracts, some layered one on top of another; the snuffer well used and lying on top of the man's pocketwatch. And most tellingly, the floor was strewn with garments. Specific ones. His boots and her little court shoes. Her stockings. His shirt and cravat. Her stomacher, and overgown. His stockings and overcoat. Her petticoat...but not her chemise. Not his breeches. At closer inspection, her chemise, though very loose at the top, was intact, and his breeches, though some of the buttons were undone, remained around his waist.

It appeared that the woman had the presence of mind to avoid the wagging of tongues that would come from servants by sunrise. They only would focus on her clothes on the floor...and pay no mind to what the Master looked like.

It would also appear that, at least for the man, he had remembered his discussion with his father-in-law , who was deeply suspicious of the younger man's intentions for tonight. To Maurice DuPont, his daughter's virtue in the eyes of God was paramount-she had to be respectable on her wedding day. But the old man had never been separated for months from his lover's touch by fangs and claws and anatomical impossibilities...so Adam respected his father-in-law's wishes...as far as what could be proven by a doctor.

He turned over onto his left side, unconsciously readjusting himself so he faced her. She stirred, opening her eyes briefly, and lifted the blanket so it covered the both of them more. She burrowed in closer to him, dozing off with her arms around his waist.

An hour passed. And another. And then, the wind began to kick up.

The breeze whistled at first, sounding almost like an ocarina as it whirled through the trees outside the cozy love nest and just barely disturbing the french doors, slightly ajar on the terrace. The branches swayed outside, back and forth, and the rushes in the distant field rustled their song in chorus, growing louder and louder. In the fireplace, a draft blew through the chimney and diffused a cloud of dust and ash outwards and into the room. The french doors began to creak and their swinging became more obvious and the breeze strengthened into a chatter of wind. The moonlight grew dark, hidden by the clouds, so that a foreboding, greenish gray half light began to fill the bedchamber. A chorus, a layering of voices whispering to each other but having no distinct language echoed off the walls, and the cloud of ash now reached from one end of the room to the other-it was sparkling, as if diamonds floated suspended in the cloud. The large drapes in front of the french doors fluttered and danced as the wind grew bolder, blew harder, faster. They undulated and whipped around, as if possessed. Suddenly, the chorus of voices seemed to coalesce with the breeze, and a clear, ethereal voice called out:

"_Ostende me!"_

The magic mirror, seated on a chair by the fireplace, began to float around the room on its own, as if alive...and able to see, through it's one eerily glowing eye. Sultan, the only witness to the whole thing, whimpered and shuffled to the side of the bed, his tail tucked between his legs. In his experience, flashy lights and that strange smell always meant something bad was about to happen. At least this way he didn't have to watch.


	8. Chapter 8:Bonne Nuit, Ma Belle Josephine

Maurice shifted the candle from hand to the other hand, yawned, and opened the heavy mint colored door with the gilt of rosettes. Taking a moment, he held up the candle to give more light. He scanned the room to make sure the orange tabby cat was not prowling about-now that kitty was back in her normal form, she'd taken to stalking mice in places she knew were suspect to have them, namely rooms and apartments that had not been used during the enchantment. More than once, Maurice and his son-in-law had been awakened by kitty pouncing on their feet at some imagined rodent under the covers and biting them hard, causing a great deal of pain. Other times the cat had taken up lying lazily tucked in a nook between the pillows and the bedclothes, and with an ear splitting screech and a swat of her paw she'd remind the big, stupid male humans that she did NOT like being rolled on top of or sat upon.

He took the candle in his hand and walked in the room, lighting the candlesticks attached to the wall. As he lit the candelabra near the desk, he wrinkled his nose at the sight of the uninhabited single bed and the rumpled mess of clothes left behind by their owner before his dinner. _He may be a human being now, but I'm no fool. I know __**EXACTLY**__ who his "rosebud" is. He thinks he can fool me, thinks I don't know that he is sneaking around with my daughter before the wedding. C'est de conneries! I sure as hell don't think he's just showing her the bookcase contraption I made for that room because he wants to impress her. "_

He went behind him to shut the door, and then across to his bed, where he put down his guitar against the wall.. He'd been playing his music for a few hours with Fife and was most surprised that the court musician, a very learned man, had a soft spot for old country reels. The man was a genius with a flageolet and Maurice's hand still smarted from trying to keep up on all those 16th notes. A man after his own heart, Fife was. Sure as hell was a lot more talkative after he relaxed and had a swill of brandy.

He sat on his bed with a plop, and retrieved a wet washcloth from the basin on the nightstand and a small bottle full of some green, gooey liquid-the salve for his arthritis the doctor had given him. As he rubbed his hands with the cloth, he continued thinking. _"When I was a young fella, I certainly didn't just sit there and twiddle my thumbs."_ He paused to remove his shoes and to rub the soles. He looked at his feet: there was enough salve for the feet, too. "_No siree, at that age I wasn't even married yet. I went out on the town with my brother and we had ourselves a fine time going to all the big city dances, sowing oats, making mischief down by the docks. I was a short thing with not a lot of sense regarding talking to girls about something I melted in Father's carriage house, but I still had me a fine time. Damn sure it was fine enough of a time that I KNOW he ain't gonna just sit there and talk with her."_

He removed his breeches, his shirt and his leather waistcoat, and then felt under the pillows for his nightshirt and nightcap. He yawned, and stretched out, and his eyes fell upon a small, crudely painted portrait sitting on the nightstand. The portrait showed a woman no more than thirty years old, with dark red hair and green eyes. There was a book in her lap, and an unfinished needlepoint perched atop the book with her hands folded over the embroidery hoop. He picked it up, and rubbed the glass surface that protected it with the skirt of his nightshirt.

Maurice's heart ached. "_Oh, Josephine, I can almost hear you talk. You'd say that I should stop grousing and be happy for her, and that it's alright. If you could pick a man with mousey brown hair, a bit of a gut, and who was just a merchant's son, Belle can pick the man who is best for her. I just want her to be able to do it right: she's supposed to be pure and unspoiled before the wedding, that's what the Church says, and that is what people expect."_

_" Now you know me, usually I don't give a damn what other people think, but she's always had a hard time on this point: grew up to look so much like you. Got as much attention from the boys as you did. I had to fight off a few of them who just didn't want to get a few things through their thick skulls-my Belle just wasn't interested in seeing them and even if she was I thought she was just too young to leave home!"_

The figure in the portrait, Maurice could have sworn, raised an eyebrow in incredulity. _"Yes, I know, your father let you be courted at fourteen, but he had a whole bunch of men who worked for him. Could sick an army of goons on the fella who tried anything with you-all I had was my wits! Building a contraption that allowed me to see who was at the door before I opened it was a good idea, but not enough. Planting roses outside with lotsa thorns made Belle happy, but I kept finding idiot 17 year old boys hiding in there. Nothing I did worked. So I did what I could. I figured out that the villagers thought I was more than just a little eccentric-they thought I was certifiable. So I played that up. I kept up with my inventions, but I also made sure I showed up at Church wearing my goggles, helmet and apron. For Belle."_

In his mind, his beloved Josephine continued to look at him. Her voice was calm, but sharp. He could hear her rebuttal. "_But when she got older, Maurice, and wanted to dance with some of those boys, it didn't help her much, did it?"_

_"Jo, it wasn't like I **FORBID** her to go out and enjoy herself, or go to the harvest dance or the solstice festival. I knew Belle needed to grow up; I did encourage her to go into town once in a while and not shut herself away in the house. The boys who weren't scared of me and did try to dance with her, those ones, didn't last very long though. They only cared about what she looked like and didn't want to see past anything other than that. I had such high hopes for her when she came home, just before her 16th birthday, head in the clouds but her book **PUT AWAY **for once. He seemed pretty nice-showed up at the house with flowers a few times. He was a little younger than Belle, but he seemed fairly bright, apprenticed to a shopkeeper. He even treated me with a little respect-totally caught me off guard, nobody in Molyneaux did that. I even let him into the barn to take a look at my new weathervane." _

_"But then one night Belle came home so upset, Jo-it made me wish you were there more than any other time. She wanted to read him some poetry she'd written. She was so excited: a **BOY **wanted to talk to her! She didn't have any marks on her, Dieu merci, it didn't go that far, but going by her story Stephen had gotten real fresh with her and she slapped him silly. I was proud of her for that-he deserved it."_

_"But then I went down to the tavern a few weeks later and there the little fils de pute was, laughing it up with a rather large man, black hair, looked to be about 21. Nobody noticed me, nobody ever did in that pub, but I overheard him say he'd just inherited the place from his father. Was laughing at the boy, his cousin, for getting beat up by a girl. Gaston wouldn't pay any attention to Belle for another two years, not until Stephen moved away, but that was the night I suspected whoever he was, something was off. He told l'avorton to make sure that she was taught a lesson. That nice girls don't go down by the creek with a Robicheaux and then expect everyone to believe her when she says nothing happened."_

The clock tolled midnight. It was long past the point for a man his age to be in bed. His memory flashed to a scene, very long ago, before his wife's death: a woman with a long red braid was lying in bed, her body still damp with sweat, but she put a healthy rosy cheeked bundle with a shock of brown hair into his arms. A November baby. Their beauty. One they'd tried over a year to conceive.

Maurice sighed. _"I still don't have the heart to tell our baby girl any of the other gossip about her. She's been through enough. Louange Jésus, she only thinks the townsfolk thought she was just peculiar for loving to read and using her mind. That was true of the older men and the ones who bothered to meet her. There's no need for her to know how many of the girls and women thought she was a Jezebel, using some of those books to charm their men. Now don't worry, I kept my promise to you and my mother that she would grow up pious, and she always has been a good girl. You'd be so proud, Josephine. Always up early on Sunday to hitch up the wagon for Mass with her little prayer book tucked under her arm, and always packing a little basket of apples and a book for later under the seat. Always lifting the small ones up to see better when there was an Adoration and giving them sweets. She even sometimes helped that lady with the five kids, the one who had triplets, get meat from the butcher. Hardly any reason to call her honor into question. Not that it mattered to those vultures in town. They called her a salope. Une salope! Belle hadn't even spoken two words to some of 'em! Can you believe that? _

He pulled back the covers. _" I had my reservations about the one she's with now, Jo. But everything Belle told me about when I was sick turned out to be true. He's got a good heart buried underneath that temper. He seems to have a quick enough mind to keep up with her, too. I never really believed in magic and fairy stories, not even when I relented a year ago and saw that gypsy lady, just to give her a few sous and a little hot soup. Gitana said something I thought didn't make a particle of sense-'The Feral One approaches soon, enrobed by a curse but his flashng eyes may yet peer through to discover the crown and the light within. He shall make your accquaintance and break all your previously held beliefs...and create a few new ones. Old One, see to it that your girl keeps her mind about her. She shall need it now and beyond."_

_"_But then again, the old crone also said I would win first prize at the science fair within the year," he said aloud. He kissed the little portrait of his wife, and layed it lovingly on his nightstand. Turning to his right side, he blew out the candle. He rolled over to his left and picked up a cord he fashioned out of a very fine copper chain. It was connected to a big system of pulleys positioned around the room, and some odd bell shaped objects dangling over the top of every candelabra bolted to the wall. Maurice tugged the cord, and in perfect unison, the bell shaped objects each fell squarely on top of the candlesticks. He smiled. His snuffer-outer system was still working like a dream.

Before turning over on his side to fall asleep, he whispered into the darkness: "Goodnight, my Josephine...wherever you are."


	9. Chapter 9: The Letter To Paris

Ma Chère Tante Clémence, Madame La Duchesse,

It has been many years, but I am writing this letter to confirm to you that the rumors are true-the Duc de Touraine has returned, fully recovered. By the time you will read this, I shall have taken my rightful place as Duc de Touraine, Comte de Poitou, Baronet von Mosel, and Conte di Taranto; I fully intend to visit the other holdings in person each in turn as soon as I have taken care of necessary, more immediate affairs, including matters of court. As per your concerns, I have already written to the Palace of Versailles and His Majesty himself apologizing for my incapacitation these many years, and the lack of correspondence. His Majesty was most pleased hearing that his kinswoman's son was well again, and not in the slightest perturbed that I had not written in my search for a cure while away traveling. He tells me he was pleased with your son's service to him while I was still a youth and saw no reason for that to change when I became ill.

I am also truly grateful His Majesty saw the wisdom in allowing Father's head of household and his secretary to continue as my caretakers. The Englishman John Cogsworth and the gentleman Marcel Lumière have both acted with honor and distinction during these many years. They have been excellent surrogates to me and better mentors, and faithful servants of this family. Treat them with the highest respect if they should write to you; I am certain Mr. Cogsworth shall do so shortly.

I am also writing to reaffirm that I possess no trace of infirmity anymore, and my travels abroad are finished: I am completely cured. Years away have done me more good than you can possibly know, Clémence_. _They have made a man of me like you always wanted, built up my character. I feel more than capable of representing the family name before the king. I am also granted the right to formally take over my maternal grandfather's old title as Lord of Poitou . As we've already discussed, Louis has toyed with the idea of giving that title to another noble in the recent past owing to his doubts of my ability to ever get well, and for reasons unexplainable His Majesty keeps hearing rumors of peasants going into a panic this past March and storming my château, something about a hideous Beast and magic and talking teapots (he has urged me to invest more money in the local asylum, just to be on the safe side.)

In regards to some more, shall we say, colorful attributes you remember me having as a lad, I can only plead the intemperance of being young and foolish. You have my solemn oath, Clémence_, _ that I have been reformed. I do not intend to be as self-indulged and prone to vice as I once was-that boy is dead. In his place is a man in love and engaged to soon be wed to the woman who reformed him. She is truly magnificent, a woman of great gentleness and modesty, of small stature but large brown eyes and hair the color of chocolate, a beauty who has won my heart. She ordinarily does not move in royal circles; she is nobody you nor your parlor women would recognize as she has never spent a day in Paris.

She is a woman of some education, and though she cannot play a note of music she is an excellent soprano, with little formal training. She shall make a most excellent Duchesse du Touraine, but owing to her life away from court I am afraid she is ignorant of some of its ways and affectations, though she is eager to please her Sovereign. I am hoping that, soon enough, a woman with your experience might wish to take her under your wing, and introduce her to the ways of gentility...

Madame Clémence, the dowager duchess, put down the lorgnette and the folded the parchment she was re-reading.

It was true. He was alive. _Putain!_

She had prayed that he had finally succumbed and passed on, the little motherfucker!

That little pissant had been a curse upon her world from the day he was born. Not that her father or that abominable Comte de Poitou cared. An heir! An heir! Hope for the family after the death of the eldest Touraine! Hope that there would yet be another Poitou, the scion of the great Angevins! Hope for the future at last; Anne had birthed a son! That bitch with the auburn hair had been useful of course, in getting in to see the Royal Family and attending all the right balls, but she was nothing to Clémence. Just one more person to be tolerated...and then her halfwit little brother finally fucked her hard enough that she got up the pole and shat out an heir.

And when the whelp got bigger, what a spoiled little bastard he was: Dropping the cat down the well, slapping a full grown man, his servant, and the servant having to apologize. Making his nanny spoon feed him chocolate cake and smearing it all over her dress. Jumping on Henri's back and biting him, like an animal. His Papa gave him anything and everything he asked for, never bothered to check in on him, being the high and mighty Lord too important for anyone. Anne was the only one who ever said no to the child and got away with it. He never wanted for a thing in his life, nor did his damned mother, and he still had the utter gall to boss her around like a peasant, or even a slave. And his mother was everything to her husband. And she got everything with being his wife.

She let him have it one day, and his mother, too. Got out a horsewhip and slashed them both. Clémence knew Anne would be too frightened of her to tell her husband or anyone. The boy would have to have explained why he was in the stables. The pathetic little weakling that Jacques called a wife even had the temerity to cry about it. Idiot girl. That only makes your attacker want to hurt you more. Nobody in all these years knew the story but Clémence . It died with Anne and Jacques in the pox epidemic, and she preferred it that way.

She'd enjoyed the position she'd been given by her brother's will, not having to deal with the little whoreson but getting all the perks. Christmas in Rome was truly something to behold. Sitting for concerts in Strasbourg-heavenly. Drowning herself in her husband's money and gambling until dawn. Sheer bliss.

But now, the boy was well.

And he was a man now. Adam would have turned 24 in March.

And somehow, in his illness, he had met a girl. And somehow, he had convinced her he was worth marrying. Probably some simpering strumpet conned by a pretty face looking so ill, but being as great a swine as his parents were. Maybe one of the daughters of that Norman lord, what-was-his-name.

And together, they would reign over Touraine, Lorraine, Taranto, and Poitou. And they would produce a child as well.

She glowered. This was a most unacceptable development.


	10. Chapter 10:The Watcher in the Darkness

X. The Watcher of the Darkness, or The Enchanted One Who Sees All

Many miles away, somewhere deep in the Ardennes, a haggard old woman sat in a clearing. She was smoking a pipe, and gathered her dark green cloak around her as she sat on her log, warming her hands by the fire. She'd gone several miles off the road to get to this spot-it was perfect for someone who wanted to be alone, in a place where not even the wolves would dare come near. It was also fortunate that, tonight, there was no rain and she wouldn't have to bother about a leaky van. Not that she couldn't fix it-such was child's play for one as powerful as she. But her last attempt spooked the damned mule who drove the van. Stupid animal-she conjured him to life and this was the thanks she got?

The day's haul was pretty meagre, as usual. But there were no souls that needed salvation or many people who even believed that magic was real. That was getting rarer these days. On the bright side, her sisters wouldn't have to worry about being burned at the stake anymore. That was good.

She had received word from her youngest sister in the Black Forest that she successfully changed a man into a bear and his brother into a dwarf. Good for her. It was a step up from the Great Debacle of 1412: Hulda had just been starting out back then. She had been living near a family where the stepmother kept on beating her stepson, pale looking thing with black hair and red lips. The stepmother eventually killed him and buried him under the juniper bush that Hulda had been charming for her restorative elixir. She tried to help the boy, most of his body was still under the bush and he could be at least re-animated, but all she could manage was a crow with the time she had. With the crow, the damn thing kept flapping around, cawing what happened to him, but not to the right people-Dumb bird! Why would the goldsmith care about what happened to you when Hulda gave you wings so you could fly to the Burgermeister?

By the time everything was over, Hulda had created a scene that spread for miles around. Half the surrounding villages were worshiping her juniper bush and keeping her unenchanted, ordinary begonias as a talisman. The boy's stepmother, whose soul smelled like a rotting corpse, had to be dispatched as the idiot Burgermeister couldn't figure out she was guilty. Then it took days to catch that stupid crow and turn him back into a boy. (The old wives of that village nowadays get it totally wrong: Hulda very well couldn't put him all the way back together and forever after the kid had a stumpy leg. That was the only part the crazy bitch managed to feed her husband in that stew.)

The old woman took a long drag on her pipe. "Now, that is why I don't do birds anymore. Simple spell to cast, yes, but unpredictable. "

Her thoughts turned across the sea to the island nations she'd visited once or twice: some mortal recently found out the Enchanted named those lands "Lilliput" amongst themselves. Probably Uncle Maraval was the culprit; he often picked up supplies in Dublin town. Her great uncle Maraval was old and infirm now. He was great in his day, once: he won a bet that he could turn the laziest boy in all of England into a hero. Just planted a few ideas in his head, and pow! He felled his first Ogre at 14 and by the time he was 21 he was doing it professionally; the Ogres up there are still too terrified to ever come to Earth ever again, and the Giants are thrilled to death that they aren't mistaken by mortals for being Ogres anymore.

Maraval was a lot luckier than most, though: most mortals of this century always thought fairies and the Enchanted, the Ancient Immortals, were female. He barely needed a disguise: withered old men with a funny crooked cane never aroused anyone's suspicion. This would sure help him with what he told her he'd been cooking up lately, something about helping a future army that might rise in the Americas. Something about him foreseeing that Britain was going to have a king who'd piss red pee. Naturally. Bizarre words, even for Maraval's standards.

And herself?-Well, her big finale before she retired wasn't due to hit until about 1791. She had a few years to go yet, putting things in motion, saving up the majority of her energy. For now she was just dropping stones so they' have a ripple effect, setting up a few rich suckers whose families had been a burden on the people of France for just a little too long (She'd been around since Charles the Hammer was in diapers-she seen it all, and it had to stop.)

The only exception she made to the rule was this boy she'd met a little over ten years ago. Classic case, he was. A spoiled little fucker. Treated badly by the world long before she got there. Parents were dead. Had all the wrong influences. Had been badly hurt and was cynical inside. Treated the people who tried to love him like garbage. Couldn't love anything or anyone. Zero respect for authority. His only strong point was that he had a powerful intellect...but he never used it for good; his soul reeked of animal musk. Would grow up to be even worse than some of the black hearted waste-of-times at Versailles or Lyon and as for what was left of his family tree?-Uggggghhh! Horrible!

He pushed her too far that night, so she let him have it. Totally lost her temper. Normally, concealed in her gypsy disguise, she would play by the bylaws of the Great Coven: she would just carefully advise the mortals, give them a few warnings, and then, if they hurt somebody, show no mercy. The Coven sided with her after the fact, thankfully, and let her continue on as she saw fit with the case. In fact, up until recently, she was looking forward to dusting off an old spell she cast centuries ago when some son of the manse killed her pet dragon while she was on holiday in Romania.

The arrogant turd the mortals in Molyneaux called Robicheaux had, for years, refused to let her take up a room in his tavern even when the rain was pouring outside, and in her travels, she discovered that he had been involved in getting rough with more than a few girls in other villages. Never got caught, though. Nearly all were prostitutes.

He was **BEGGING** to be turned into a wild pig. The Beast spell wouldn't have worked on him: he was far too bloody ignorant. His soul was blackened more by thinking he was better than anyone else, needed a spell that turned him into something that shits where it eats because Robicheaux treated others he considered lower than him as shitting where they ate.

She'd warned him as Mama Gitana for years to change his ways, but the results in her scrying remained the same: he would always die and would either get eaten by an animal or killing someone in a fit of rage. The outcome always wound up hurting the same girl. His obsession with her was beyond magical help. (She received word, that when he died, his soul, floating above the coffin, made the fairy folk present gag and vomit-the stench of pig shit was even worse than when he still lived.)

She was happy at least that the girl didn't wind up with that swine in the end. That one wonderful girl, the angel living in Molyneux had a magnificent specimen of a soul, one of the most lovely she'd sensed in years. Gitana managed to snag a little hair from the child's ponytail once just so she could prove to her Enchanted brethren she'd' found a rare treasure (she waved it around like a trophy in triumph once they saw it wasn't a lie.) A little stubborn, had a bit of a temper herself, but otherwise, lovely! Her soul gave off a scent that only Immortals could smell-scenella, not always common in such a pretty face and very rare in mortals, considering that the flower only bloomed for the Enchanted.

Her father even had a nice smell, like cedar, and upon closer examination of his soul it was a nice lumenite with a dash of maruna: a silvery substance in the kind of heart and strong of will, accented with a splash of the stuff that gave mortals the ability to think outside the box. The DuPont girl was the right one; much like her Papa but also inherited a rare admixture of his traits with her mother's, creating coraurum. Just right to break the spell of the heir of Touraine: she had discovered soon after she cursed him that his soul, as an infant, was once a near exact match to the DuPont girl's..and over the years it had been corrupted. Souls that powerful often didn't do well when unleashed on the world in their corrupt form in adult mortals.

She was destined to be his mate even before she moved into that poor provincial town; the scrying pool confirmed it over and over. The steely, hardened soul of the man inside the Beast she scryed from time to time was only going to rot away and become an animal's if it didn't love soon. It was ready to try as the core had softened to what it once was again. The girl had plenty of courage. A little immature in her ideas about true love, but with the potential to grow. She needed a push. Getting her to accept the basket of tiny enchanted roses didn't work, and Monsieur Pigshit kept getting in the way. Good thing her father had showed up that night in June with hot soup and a few sous to get his fortune read. The rose she gave the heir was already wilting. It was wilting, and she still had a few stones to drop and create ripples to finish off the job.

Which reminded her. From a pouch by the log she was sitting on, the old woman retrieved a little powder, a wand, and a small hand mirror. She deftly tossed the powder into the fire, where they turned the flames into a merry gradient of reds and pinks. She blew twice into it, and waved her wand in a series of concentric circles. She muttered an incantation, and the trees above her began to sway. In her other hand, the mirror began to glow, and little bolts of lightning crackled around its perimeter. A huge puff of smoke was sent skyward, and as if it had a mind of its own, pushed itself away towards the south. Looking around the clearing, making sure the hour was late and mortals were abed, the Enchantress let her true form shine through. The spell worked best when the mirror could feel an Enchanted One unhidden by disguise.

_"**OSTENDE ME!"**_

Her eyes beheld a room strewn with clothes, candles, and a dog cowering under the bed in fear. She would do a full sweep of the castle tonight. Thus far, everything was looking good. The lovers were together, there were no more animal carcasses, and the heir was a healthy adult male, no complications with the spell or allergies like she feared...

AUTHOR"S NOTES: OSTENDE ME-Corruption of a Latin phrase meaning, "SHOW ME." The Enchantress wouldn't have said it in French because that would have made the mirror only show mundane things, it wouldn't have recognized it's creator and come alive.

Lilliput: Jonathan Swift wrote a book called Gulliver's Travels, parts of which were satire. Lilliput was the satirical name for England. The book was published in the early 1700s, and would have been contemporary to the timeframe.

Boy with red lips and black hair getting buried then eaten: This is a Brothers Grimm Tale called  
><em>The Juniper Tree. <em> Another story referenced here is a Romanian folktale called _The Enchanted Pig._ I thought it would be funny if the Enchantress had relatives in different parts of Europe casting spells at different times in history that either resulted in history or a fairy tale amongst the mortals ( often a corrupted version of the actual events.)

Mama Gitana: GITANE is the French word for gypsy.

coraurum- cor is the Latin word for heart and aurum the Latin word for gold. Literally, Belle has a heart of gold, and so does Adam.


End file.
